Mentone Receives National Opioid Settlement Payment
Mentone Receives National Opioid Settlement Payment
Posted
Jackie Gorski-jgorski@timesuniononline.com
Mentone Receives National Opioid Settlement PaymentMENTONE – Mentone recently received its first payment from a national opioid settlement.
During Wednesday’s Mentone Town Council meeting, Clerk-Treasurer Amanda Yaprak said the town received $3,023.36 as part of an agreement reached between a coalition of attorneys general and Johnson & Johnson, Cardinal Health, McKesson and AmerisourceBergen.
Indiana is a part of the $26 billion national settlement with Johnson & Johnson, AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson. Indiana’s share of the settlement is approximately $507 million and all cities, towns and counties in the state are participating in the settlement.
Town Marshal Jim Eads brought up a quick search of how the funds are to be spent. At least 70% of the funds are to be used to fund future opioid-remediation efforts, according to the National Opioid Settlement website.
Council President Jill Gross asked if the police department carried Narcan. Eads said they do. Gross said that may be one option of how to spend the money.
Eads said spending the settlement money is something they’ll have to look into.
Earlier in the meeting, the Mentone Town Council talked about recycling options for the town.
The Kosciusko County Solid Waste Management Board voted to close all nine unsupervised residential recycling drop-off sites in Kosciusko County after Dec. 31.
Councilman Tim Croy said at least one family in Mentone signed up for recycling services through Borden Waste-Away Services Inc. and was scheduled to have pickup sometime this week. However, Croy questioned if Borden would offer the service for only one household if households were to pay individually instead of the town entering into a townwide contract.
If the town were to enter into a townwide contract with Borden, Croy said Borden would charge the town a certain amount of money a month regardless of how many households sign up.
Croy talked with the Fulton County Solid Waste District and they don’t have any more trailers like they use in Akron and the last trailer that was built cost $38,000. The district asked if the town would be willing to pay for the trailer “and even asked if we’d be willing to haul it to them and bring it back,” he said.
He said the amount of money the district would make off of the recycling services, it would take about 25 years to pay for the trailer.
It was also Croy’s understanding if Mentone helped pay for a trailer, the town wouldn’t be charged a monthly fee, but there would be a monthly fee for the other two options.
He also said APEX contacted him and they are working with a company that does recycling and they’d “be interested in the same thing.” He said APEX would charge $2,500 a month for recycling services.
No decision was made during Wednesday’s meeting.
At the end of the meeting, Utilities Superintendent Josh Shepherd brought up a house within town limits. He said the house does not have water but has access to the sewer system and is not paying a bill. He said he’d like to address whether the homeowner needs to starting paying a base sewer bill or whether the sewer can be disconnected.
Town attorney Andrew Grossnickle said to start billing the homeowner for the base sewer rate and put a note with the bill explaining why the homeowner is getting the bill. Gross said to start billing the homeowner and see what the response is.
In other business, the Council:
• Tabled a decision on an annual $5,000 Kosciusko Economic Development Corporation agreement.
• Approved a motion to apply up to $83,500 to the Community Crossing grant the town is applying for, with the possibility of adding $69,000 from the restricted Motor Vehicle Highway fund if possible.
• Yaprak said Kosciusko County HELP Community Coordinator Amy Roe helped her with her first Go Forward grant and Yaprak is 95% done with the application.
The Council approved for Yaprak to apply for the $20,000 grant and approved the grant application.
